While Red Chinese ground troops took 5300 hits from American fighter bomber pilots in Vietnam War -- NVA/PAVN soldiers in upper Laos lived high on the hog, thanks to Mao!

Author Qiang Zhai gives us an overview of these things in his excellent book China and the Vietnam Wars 1950-1975, Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

As Zhai tells us on page 135 of his tell-all book, "Beginning in June 1965, China sent ground-to-air missile, antiaircraft artillery, railroad, engineering, minesweeping, and logistic units into North Vietnam to help Hanoi defend the DRV [Democratic "Ha! Ha!" Republic of Vietnam, as the Reds called themselves]. The total number of Chinese troops in North Vietnam between June 1965 and March 1968 amounted to over 320,000. The peak year was 1967, when 170,000 Chinese soldiers were present. They operated antiaircraft guns, built and repaired roads, bridges, and rail lines, and constructed factories. They enabled the PAVN [Peoples Army of Vietnam, known to most of us fighting south of the 17th parallel in South Vietnam simply as the "NVA" or North Vietnamese Army] to South Vietnam for the fighting." (135)

As far as America's combat pilots must have been concerned, this may have looked like Korea, all over again. Because just as they had done in the Korean War (1950-1953), when the Chinese PLA came to occupy huge chunks of North Korean territory north of the 37th parallel, in the far reaches of North Vietnam beyond either the 20th or 21st parallel, the American Airforce, Navy and Marine fighter and bomber pilots attacked the Chinese communist troop concentrations every which way, although the Chinese put up a feroscious resistance.

Indeed, as Zhai dryly tells us, "When the last Chinese troops withdrew from Vietnam in August, 1973, 1,100 soldiers had lost their lives and 4,200 had been wounded." (135)

11 June 1967. During a conference an agreement was reached "between the PLA's (C hinese Peoples Liberation Army) Kunming Military Region and the PAVN's North Western Military Region, in 1967 China would provide material assistance to the [1,890] PAVN troops stationed in upper Laos." (135)

Damn! Those 1,890 bo doi -- "infantry, dust, or nothingness" in Vietnamese -- got to live high on the hog. Because this is what Mao did to outshine Santa Clause.

Remember: 1,890 PAVN/NVA soldiers, o.k.? Now here's what they were supposed to get, "aside from weapons and other military equipment."

5,670 sets of uniforms, 3 per man per year.

5,670 pairs of shoes, 3 per man per year.

567 tons of rice, or as Zhai calculates it, 0.8 kilograms per person daily.

20.7 tons of salt.

55.2 tons of meat.

20.7 tons of fish.

20.7 tons of sesame and peanuts.

20.7 tons of beans.

20.7 tons of lard.

6.9 tons of soy sauce.

20.7 tons of white sugar.

8,000 toothbrushes.

11,100 tubes of toothpaste.

24,700 bars of regular soap.

10,600 bars of scented soap.

109,000 cases of cigarettes,

As Zhai himself concludes, "In total, the agreement included 687 different items, covering such goods as table tennis balls, volleyballs, harmonicas, playing cards, pins, fountain pen ink, sewing needles, and vegetable seeds." (135)

Zhai's book, China and the Vietnam Wars 1950-1975, is a good reference book for all college libraries.